


Singer's House of Sick

by Lynx22281



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sick Castiel, Sick Dean Winchester, bb!verse, spnbbverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-18
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-08 21:10:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynx22281/pseuds/Lynx22281
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kids, even ones who used to be celestial wavelengths, are germ magnets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Singer's House of Sick

Since the winter had lingered a little longer than usual and the trio of mini angels could still hide their wings inside bulky cold-weather clothes, the Winchester brothers had been a little more lenient about taking them out of the house from time to time. One day in February, after a particularly bad candy prank gone wrong, Bobby calmly asked Sam and Dean to go to the store for the weekly run and to take the angels with them. He may or may not have been audibly grinding his teeth.

They began the shopping trip with Sam manning the cart of food and Dean manning the cart of the kids, until Balthazar wouldn’t stop oogling some woman’s overflowing rack, Gabriel wouldn’t stop grabbing every bag of candy and shiny thing in sight, and Castiel wouldn’t stop a running commentary on the people around them. Sam finally made Dean take the angels across the street to the park so he could shop in peace.

The playground was full of kids ranging in age from stroller babies to tweens hovering over their cellphones. The three boys stuck fast to Dean’s legs for several minutes before a soccer ball rolled by with a half-dozen grass stained kids following after it. Balthazar was the first to take off. Then Gabriel spied a jungle gym teeming with kids trying to climb to the top. Castiel was stuck deciding which brother to follow before he finally determined Balthazar and the ball posed the least risk of injury. Dean flopped down on a long bench opposite some young moms who eyed him appreciatively. He gave them a grin before pulling out his phone to send his brother a text – _Pie!_

Nearly two hours later, the Impala was loaded down with food and supplies in the trunk and exhausted angel-boys in the backseat. Dean dug into a cardboard container holding a mini blueberry pie while Sam drove back to Bobby’s house.

Castiel was the first to succumb to the late-winter virus. He woke up the next morning able to breathe out of only the right side of his nose. For most of the day, he stayed miserably tucked up into one corner of the couch, curled up in his trench coat and a blue fleece blanket. A collection of snotty tissues littered the floor around a small trashcan on one side of the couch. Sam had given him a watered down dose of Dayquil that he found in the Bobby’s medicine cabinet. They were underprepared to deal with child-sized colds.

Gabriel and Balthazar were outside aggravating Bobby who had gone to the garage to change the sparkplugs on the Chevelle. Sam was at the desk with his nose stuck in a dusty book. Dean was on laundry duty. It took him nearly an hour after breakfast to collect all the dirty clothes from every room in the house and to dismantle the angels’ nest in the attic. He was a bit out of sorts without Castiel tagging along behind him like a shadow. Out of habit, he still checked to make sure he wasn’t about to trip over the boy when he moved through the house, even though Castiel wasn’t there. After the first load of socks and undershirts finished drying, he brought them up from the basement to the den to fold.

Dean frowned softly as he looked down at the little angel propped up against the arm of the couch with his eyes closed. He carefully set the basket of clean clothes down the floor between the couch and coffee table, and reached out to touch Castiel’s forehead. Glassy blue eyes opened and turned up to Dean.

“You feeling any better?” he asked as he brushed messy dark curls from Castiel’s warm temple with his fingertips. It had always been unnerving to see the angel down for the count after particularly bad fight, and seeing the pint-sized version of him so lethargic and wretched was just as bad, if not worse.

Castiel shook his head, wincing as he rubbed his raw nose with the cuff of his coat. “I feared that we would be susceptible to illness in these forms.”

“Tiny bodies with no natural immunity and no angel mojo. Guess it was just a matter of time before one of you got sick,” Dean said as he sat next to the boy and began to pair socks together. Three adult males and three little boys went through a surprising number of socks during a week. His frown deepened. “Probably shouldn’t have let you play with all those kids at the park yesterday.”

“It was…fun,” the angel admitted in a tiny voice as he folded himself up smaller in his makeshift nest.

For some time, the only sounds in the house were the soft rustling of Dean folding clothes, the scratching of Sam’s pencil, and the quiet swishing of Castiel’s twitchy wings as he napped. 

The quiet was broken when Bobby abruptly barged through the back door causing Dean to look up from the laundry. He stood there with Gabriel under his right arm and Balthazar under his left. “I swear to God…”

“We don’t blaspheme your mother, Bobby,” Balthazar piped up.

Bobby’s eyes slid shut as he silently counted to ten. Without another word, he dumped the two angels on the floor and turned on his heel heading back outside.

“What’d you two do this time?” Dean asked as he finished pairing up the last socks, thankful that the all of the socks had a mate.

“Bobby didn’t appreciate Gabe making candy bubbles come out of the Chevelle’s air vents,” Balthazar said with a shrug.

“They were tasty!” Gabriel hmph’ed softly and crossed his arms over his chest. 

“And, very sticky,” the little blond angel added as he dusted himself off and headed towards the couch.

Dean had things that needed to get done around the house and Sam was busy translating Latin without Castiel’s usual help. Neither of the brothers had time to babysit the two more rambunctious former angels of the trio who tended to end up in trouble whenever they got bored. Dean pushed himself off the couch and grabbed the _Cars_ DVD from a stack next to the TV. They had watched it so many times over the last several weeks that he could almost recite the damn movie line for line, but it was the longest running out of all the Disney movies they had on hand and would keep the angels occupied for almost two hours.

As Gabriel and Balthazar fought over who was going to sit on which cushion, Castiel burrowed further into the corner with a pained look on his flushed face. The youngest angel didn’t have the energy to complain about his brothers jostling against him. Dean furrowed a brow, watching the boys settle down. After pushing play on the DVD player, he scooped up the dark haired angel-boy with one arm and the laundry basket with the other, taking both upstairs. He set Castiel down on the unmade daybed in room he had claimed for himself; he had let his gigantor of a little brother have the queen bed in the other guest room. At least the daybed was wider than the Impala’s backseat. He’d spent too many nights over the past 30-odd years curled up in the back of his car on the side of the road somewhere. So, he wouldn’t complain about sleeping on a twin bed.

“Thank you, Dean”, the boy said quietly as he was rescued from his brothers. The youngest of the three angels quietly arranged his coat, blanket, and the bed’s lumpy pillows into a vague nest shape before curling up. The covers smelled like soap, leather, gun oil, and dryer sheets.

Castiel was fast asleep by the time Dean finished putting away the laundry. It was bad enough that the curse had stripped the angels of their Grace (or at least severely diminished it in Gabriel’s case) and turned them into toddlers, leaving them vulnerable to human sickness was just icing on the shit-cake.

The angel spent the rest of the afternoon ensconced in Dean’s room either sleeping or playing _Angry Birds_ on Sam’s iPhone, which had been lying next to the pillow after he woke up from his first nap. Dean occasionally came in to check on him and bring him Gatorade and children’s cold medicine after a run to the pharmacy. Later in the evening after the other two angels had been wrestled into the bath, Dean came back into the dark room with his t-shirt and jeans plastered wetly to his body. He grumbled to himself as he rifled through one of the piles on the floor looking for his pajamas. 

“The pigs wouldn’t get the eggs if the birds quit putting them down on the ground,” came the small voice from the bed. Castiel’s pale face was illuminated by the bluish glow of the phone clutched in his tiny hands. He coughed, splattering little droplets on the screen.

“Dude, seriously. You’ve got to cover your mouth when you cough.” Dean reached over plucking the phone from the boy’s grasp and scrubbed it with a wet wipe from the night stand. Because of Gabriel’s constant sticky messes, cartons of baby wipes had been strategically placed throughout the house weeks ago.

Sam knocked on the door and poked his head in the room. “Have you seen my….” He sighed and rolled his eyes as Dean tossed the powder-fresh phone at him. “I’ve been looking for this all day.”

“Yeah, well. There’s no TV up here. Didn’t want Cas to get bored.” Dean shrugged. “I don’t have that stupid game they all like to play on my phone.”

A crash out in the hallway saved Dean from Sam’s bitch-face as his brother quickly exited to fix whatever mess Balthazar and Gabriel made before Bobby found it.

Dean sat down on the edge of the bed fiddling with his own phone for a few minutes, checking for texts from Garth to see if the other hunter had uncovered anything about the curse. There was no new information. Sighing, he set the phone on his nightstand before standing to change clothes. 

Castiel had curled back into a ball after Sam’s phone had been taken away from him. Dean studied him quietly. The poor kid probably wouldn’t sleep well, if at all, if he went upstairs to the nest with his brothers. Glancing at the clock, Dean calculated that Castiel would need another dose of medicine in a couple of hours. He really didn’t want to accidentally wake up the other two, since they were usually impossible to get back to sleep if they ever woke up in the middle of the night.

“Scoot,” Dean said softly as he nudged the angel towards the back rails of the bed. After some shifting and shuffling, he stretched out on his side, facing Castiel and the wall. The pint-sized angel immediately snuggled into his chest, small hands fisting into his shirt. His soft, messy hair tickled Dean’s chin. The hunter curled one arm under his pillow and draped the other over Castiel, pulling him close. The boy wiggled trying to get comfortable. “If you kick me in the junk, I’ll dump your sick ass on the floor.”

Castiel stiffened slightly, willing his feet to be still. The big, warm hand rubbing circles into his back soon made his body relax. In the moments just before the boy drifted off to sleep, what Dean thought was congestion rattling in his chest sounded suspiciously like a purr. 

Like dominoes, the rest of the house fell to whatever bug the boys had picked up from the playground. Bobby woke up uncharacteristically late the next morning with bleary eyes and a cough. The following day, Balthazar lay listlessly on a floor cushion with a tissue stuffed up one nostril. The day after that, Sam, looking more like Rudolph than Bullwinkle, got up only to take a hot shower and eat half a bowl of Lucky Charms before going back to bed. Gabriel seemed mostly immune, but grew depressed that nobody was well enough to appreciate any of his pranks and Dean was too busy to entertain him. 

For nearly a week, Dean kept up a routine of dispensing medicine and refilling drink glasses every few hours. He almost emptied the cough and cold section of the Sioux Falls Pharmacy. On his third trip to pick up more Sudafed, Nyquil, and Children’s Tylenol, the pharmacist asked if he was cooking meth. Dean couldn’t quite tell whether or not the man was joking. Thankfully, Sheriff Mills, the only person outside the Singer house who knew the angels’ plight, had been picking up a prescription at the same time and corroborated Dean’s story that his uncle, brother, and nephews were sick.

Around the time everybody appeared to be getting better, Dean started feeling the stuffiness and aches the others had complained of. However, after only two days of rather mild symptoms he seemed to bounce back faster than anybody else had. On the third morning, he woke up feeling a little more tired, but his head felt less congested. Still wearing his pajamas, he headed downstairs to find the three angels already jockeying for the best position on the couch while they watched cartoons. Balthazar’s nose was still a little red, but all three boys had returned to their pre-sickness energy levels. Dean pulled bacon and eggs out of the fridge before grabbing the pans from the drawer under the oven.

Gabriel called over the couch. “I want pancakes!”

“You want Bobby’s maple syrup. And the only way he’ll unlock the booze cabinet where he stashed it is if we’re having pancakes,” Dean retorted with a cough as he reached for the pancake mix in the cabinet above the stove. He mixed the batter before cracking and scrambling six eggs in a bowl. Just as he finished spooning out the first three puddles of batter on the old cast iron skillet, a coughing fit forced him to turn away from the stove and bend over the sink. When the cough abated, he couldn’t quite catch his breath. 

While Castiel no longer had his Grace to zip him from point A to point B in the blink of an eye, he still moved like a baby ninja and suddenly appeared at Dean’s side. He reached out to touch the taller man’s elbow, as that was as high as he could reach without standing on tiptoe. “Dean, are you alright?”

“Yeah,” he wheezed, rubbing his fist hard against the middle of his chest. The tightness in his lungs wasn’t going away and every time he tried to take a deep breath it felt like a knife was being twisted high in his left side. Dean suddenly felt very clammy and jittery. Recognizing the light-headed feeling, he quickly knelt down in front of the counter to shorten the distance to the floor if he passed out. 

The pancakes began to burn causing the nearby smoke alarm to scream out its shrill warning of impending doom. Castiel grabbed a dish towel and managed to drag the heavy skillet noisily off of the stove, letting it clatter into the sink full of dishwater with a boiling sizzle. 

“Hey, Winchester! That’s our breakfast you’re turning into charcoal!” Gabriel cried as he jumped off the couch and ran underneath the alarm, pumping his wings to help dissipate the smoke so the alarm would stop screeching.

Castiel crouched down next to Dean, cupping his pale face. The hunter was breathing fast and shallow, unable to take a deep breath. Sweat beaded up on his forehead. “You are not alright, Dean.”

The blaring smoke detector had gotten the attention of Bobby and Sam, and soon both of them were thundering down the stairs. Sam missed the last three steps of the staircase entirely. He expected to see the stove on fire, but instead saw Dean slumped against the cabinet under the sink on the brink of fainting with Castiel fretfully plucking at Dean’s t-shirt sleeve trying to keep him awake. 

“Dean!” Sam said sharply as he knelt next to his brother, grabbing his shoulders. “What happened?”

Dean shook his head, but started coughing into his elbow before he could reply. He clutched Sam’s forearm with his free hand, squeezing tightly to steady himself. Castiel looked up at the taller hunter with worried eyes. “I think his chest hurts.”

Sam swore under his breath, but quickly apologized to Castiel. Though they were older than the Earth itself, Sam still felt weird cursing around a bunch of kid-sized angels. 

Bobby appeared on the other side of Dean, pulling his arm over his shoulder while Sam did the same. The older hunter nodded towards the den. “C’mon, let’s get him on the couch. Baz, open the cabinet in the corner bookcase and bring me the stethoscope from the medicine bag. Gabe, stack the pillows against one of the arms of the couch. Cas, see if you can reach the knob on the stove to turn off the burner.”

Sam and Bobby quickly got Dean settled on the couch as his coughing subsided and the angels rushed around following Bobby’s orders. Throwing modesty aside, Bobby lifted up Dean’s t-shirt to press the diaphragm of the stethoscope against his left side. Dean sucked in a surprised breath at the cold metal sliding over his heated skin and started coughing again.

"Take a deep breath,” Bobby directed.

Dean got halfway through an inhale before pain prevented him from expanding his lungs any further. With a strained whisper, he said, “Can’t.”

Bobby handed the stethoscope to Balthazar who hovered close to his side before nudging Dean to lay back, propped up against the pillows stacked against the arm of the couch. Sam, Gabriel, and Castiel hung back a ways not sure what to do.

“Well, doc. What’s the diagnosis?” Dean quipped quietly as he cleared his throat. 

“Sounds like pneumonia, kid.” Bobby rested at hand on the younger man’s shoulder.

Dean groaned, letting his head roll back against the pillows. He’d had pneumonia once before, when he was nine. Both he and Sam had been fighting colds for nearly a month before his took a turn for the worse and he ended up in the pediatric wing at Sioux Fall General for a week hooked up to an oxygen mask and IVs of fluid and antibiotics. The food had sucked, the TV in the room hadn’t worked, Dad had left on the second day of Dean’s hospital stay for a hunt in Louisiana, and Bobby had kept Sam at home to prevent the five-year-old from catching anything. The whole thing ranked just below his mom dying and the shtriga almost getting Sam on Dean’s list of worst childhood memories. “Don’t want to go to the hospital,” he sputtered out on a cough.

Bobby gave him a sympathetic look before glancing over his shoulder to Sam and the angels. The younger Winchester looked like somebody kicked his puppy, Castiel’s eyes were watery, and even Balthazar and Gabriel looked somber, bordering on worried. The older hunter knew getting Dean out of the house against his will would be nearly impossible. The kid was stubborn as an ox, not to mention nearly as big as one. “I’ll call Jody and get her to bring some stuff over. She was a paramedic before she got into law enforcement. Maybe we can head this off before it gets worse.”

Dean visibly relaxed and his breathing evened out a little. Ever the commander in times of crisis, Bobby set everybody into motion with tasks before going to the phone. Sam helped Dean back upstairs to bed as the three angels zoomed around straightening the den and kitchen as best as they could to make the downstairs presentable.

A little while later, the sheriff arrived, lugging a huge canvas EMT bag and a portable oxygen tank. She shoved everybody except Bobby out of the room while she gave Dean a quick examination. They wouldn’t be able to completely confirm pneumonia without a chest x-ray, but Dean was adamant about not going to the hospital insisting that besides the incessant cough and inability to take a deep breath, he was fine. Jody set him up with an IV antibiotic to help fight the infection faster and convinced him to take oxygen by a nasal cannula for a few hours to help bring his oxygen saturation back up. After almost an hour, she let the others back into Dean’s room and led Bobby out into the hallway.

“Wore himself out taking care of the rest of you, didn’t he?” She watched as Sam sat on the edge of the bed, holding Gabriel in his lap while the other two boy-angels stood close to Dean’s head. She could hear Dean quietly offering them words of reassurance and teasing them that it was his turn to be waited on hand and foot.

“Yeah,” Bobby admitted sheepishly. “Guess we shouldn’t have been the big wusses we were over a few sniffles.”

Once downstairs, Jody pressed an orange pill bottle into Bobby’s hand. “Oral antibiotics. Give him the first dose tomorrow morning with breakfast. Make him take all of them even if he feels better. Give him Tylenol for the fever. It isn’t high, but might as well stay ahead of it. His blood pressure is a little low. Make sure he goes slow when he tries to get up, otherwise he’ll probably pass out. Coughing will help get rid of whatever’s gunking up his lungs, but if it keeps him from sleeping or gets too bad give him some cough syrup. Load him full of Gatorade, water, juice, whatever he’ll drink that isn’t alcoholic. Something hot will make his throat feel better, but stay away from coffee.”

“Thanks, Dr. Quinn,” Bobby teased as he read the label on the bottle.

“This is more from my mom-side rather than my medical-side.” Jody shared a sad smile with the hunter.

“All the same. We’re glad you’re on our team.” He squeezed the sheriff’s shoulder gently before ushering her towards the door. 

Pausing on the porch, Jody turned and said, “If he starts going downhill, you better get him to the hospital fast. Call me if you need to. I’ll come with blue lights flashing, shoot him full of tranquilizers, and drag his unconscious ass out of the house myself.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bobby replied with a little salute.

Jody gave the older man a slightly exasperated look before climbing into her patrol car and driving off the Singer property.

Dean quickly grew tired of his brother and the angels hovering over him like he was about to die any second. Thankfully a grumbly little tummy saved him from throwing all of them out of his room so he could go back to sleep. Everybody had been too panicked and busy to remember breakfast, even Gabriel who normally would conjure up a candy bar every half hour between meals. Sam took the hungry angels downstairs to scrounge together a very late breakfast/early lunch. Bobby dropped off a tray loaded with a bottle of Gatorade, a mug of steaming tea, a huge plastic tumbler full of water, and a bowl of tomato soup on the nightstand in Dean’s room. 

“I don’t have a bell, but you can text us if you need anything,” the older man said before leaving the room.

The atmosphere in the house was quiet and tense. Gabriel, Balthazar, and Castiel stayed on their best behavior all afternoon, hanging out on the couch out of the way, even switching out the DVDs themselves. Gabriel took extra care to not get the disc sticky when it was his turn to put in a new movie. Sam tried to finish translating some old Latin text he started working on before everybody in the house got sick, but couldn’t concentrate and ended up taking up space on the couch with the boys while they re-watched _Brave_ for the third time. Bobby went to town for groceries and yet another run to the pharmacy to load up on supplies. 

By the time Bobby returned, the boys had started watching _The Aristocats_ and Sam was in the kitchen pulling out pots and pans for dinner. He saw two short flashes dart out from the corner of his eyes and peered out of the window over the sink to see the Balthazar and Gabriel running out to help Bobby bring in the bags of groceries. They couldn’t hold much, but at least they were trying to be helpful.

Bobby shut the door as he brought in the last armload of bags. Pausing, he glanced around the kitchen. “Where’s Cas?”

Sam spun around on his heel giving the kitchen and den a quick panicked look. Losing an angel usually meant at least an hour long search since the boys could find the most out of the way places to run off to. Balthazar and Gabriel were beginning to pull things out of the grocery bags spread around the floor, but Castiel was nowhere to be seen. 

“Don’t worry, Samoose. Cassie went upstairs to check on Dean-o.” Gabriel said before squealing in delight when he spied a container of candy orange slices. The archangel sighed when it was plucked out of his hands before he could dig in to the sweets. 

“Are you sure?” Bobby eyed him critically.

Gabriel sighed and made grabby motions with his hands as the bearded man held the candy over his head. “Positive!”

For once, Sam trusted what Gabriel said in regards to one of his brothers. He relaxed and turned back to sink to fill up a pot with water. 

Bobby fished out two orange slices for the boys before he finished putting up the groceries. After checking to see if Sam needed any help with supper, he went upstairs to unload the pharmacy haul. The elder hunter paused at Dean’s door to check in on the invalid. Dean was still asleep, still propped up on a massive pile of pillows to help him breathe easier. He wasn’t hooked up to the IV, but the oxygen tube was still under his nose. Castiel was kneeling beside the bed with his head bowed over his clasped hands. The angel’s iridescent black wings twitched nervously every few seconds. Bobby could hear soft little whispers, but couldn’t quite tell what the boy was saying. Shrugging to himself, he headed down the hall to the bathroom.

A squeak from the hallway floorboards pulled Dean back into the waking world. He inhaled a little more deeply than before and lifted a hand to rub his face. The feeling of a plastic tube startled him and he tugged at it, but it was caught on his ears. 

Small hands gently batted at his fingers and settled the nasal cannula back in place on his face. “Leave it alone, Dean. Sheriff Mills said it would help you get better.”

Dean yawned, clearing the fog from his brain. _Oh, right. Sick_ , he thought as he closed his eyes again. He went through his usual head-to-toe assessment whenever he woke up after being injured. He didn’t feel any worse than he had before he went to sleep. His chest was still a little tight, but taking deeper breaths didn’t cause sharp pains anymore, only a dull ache. Opening his eyes, he looked down to the back of his left hand. He very vaguely remembered Sam taking the IV out a few hours ago. He was now sporting a Toy Story Band-Aid where the needle had been.

Castiel must have thought the hunter had gone back to sleep because when Dean looked over to him, he was kneeling by the bed looking at the floor.

“Hey, man,” he said softly. “Whatcha doin’?”

“Praying,” the seraph responded simply.

“Pretty sure there isn’t anybody up there listening.” Dean couldn’t help the hint of sadness coloring his voice. If God was still upstairs, then he was pretty sure the angels wouldn’t still be in their current predicament.

Castiel opened one eye and lifted his head slightly to look up at Dean. He sighed as though the hunter were a small child who didn’t understand anything. “Prayer is very powerful on its own regardless of whether or not God is listening.”

It was weird, but pleasant at the same time, to know that Castiel cared enough to get down on his knees in prayer just because Dean was sick. As far as he knew, the angel hadn’t prayed for any of the others when they were sick. Dean wondered if Sam still prayed. Sam had once confessed that he had prayed every night for years. Dean supposed that faith was something their mom had been able to instill in Sam in the very short time she was in his life. He had lost his faith early and never regained it, even after knowing for certain that angels, Heaven, and God really did exist. But, he didn’t see the need to have faith in something he knew as fact.

“Why not pray yourselves back to full power?” Dean asked as he pushed himself up to sit on the edge of the bed and pulled the cannula off his face.

Castiel didn’t answer right away, having gone back to his reverent posture, whispering softly in Enochian against his threaded fingers. The powerful words sounded strange coming from a child’s voice. Finally he breathed a soft _Amen_ into his hands and stood up to look at Dean in that way that only Castiel could – arms hanging straight by his sides, head cocked slightly to one side, blue eyes staring at him with the same childish wonder that the angel had even in his adult form. “Prayer was meant for humans, not angels.”

The little angel stepped up to the bed and carefully tugged at the top blanket, which Dean realized was actually the trenchcoat. “You should rest. I’ll let Sam know you’re awake so he can bring you something to drink and eat.”

“Gotta hit the head. Then I’ll come right back,” he reassured the angel, reaching out to gently rub his knuckle against Castiel’s smooth, cherub-like cheek.

Clearing his throat with a cough, Dean followed Castiel out into the hallway and made a shooing motion in the angel’s direction when he stopped to look dubiously back at him from the top of the stairs. “I’m a big boy, Cas. I can pee by myself.”

Half an hour and a shower later, Dean felt at least a little more human as he tucked into the big bowl of homemade mashed potatoes Sam brought him for dinner. After tomato and rice soup, mashed potatoes were Dean’s next favorite thing to eat when he was sick, though growing up, the potatoes were usually instant, not homemade. He drank an entire bottle of orange Gatorade and big glass of water just to keep his brother from bitching at him about staying hydrated. Sam stuck a thermometer in Dean’s mouth and the pulse ox reader on his forefinger before giving him a dose of Nyquil to help him sleep. His oxygen saturation was back to normal so Sam didn’t make him put the nasal cannula back on.

After dinner, Dean could hear Bobby herding the angels upstairs for their bath, but the noise was much more subdued than normal. When the boys were clean, all three of them shyly peeked inside Dean’s darkened room. He was propped up against the pillows with the covers and Castiel’s trenchcoat pulled up over his legs. His face was illuminated by Sam’s iPhone. The tinny music of _Plants vs Zombies_ carried over to the doorway. 

The Nyquil was already starting to take effect and Dean began to have a hard time keeping up with the horde of zombies munching their way through his pea-shooter defenses. He ended up just barely completing the level, sacrificing a lawn mower to keep the last zombie from attacking the house, and tossed the phone on to the nightstand. He spied the three angels peering at him from the doorway. Smiling sleepily, he waved at them. “Goodnight, little monsters.”

“We’re not monsters, Dean,” Balthazar said, rolling his eyes dramatically.

“Yeah, yeah. We wouldn’t keep you if you were,” Dean admitted. 

Balthazar and Gabriel dashed down the hallway towards the attic stairs. Dean thought it was amazing that 80 pounds of toddler could sound like an elephant crashing up the stairs. Castiel lingered in the doorway for a few seconds as if trying to make a decision. He looked longingly in Dean’s direction, though Dean couldn’t quite tell if it was because he wanted to stay or just that he wanted his coat back. With a fluttery little huff, the dark-haired angel trudged towards the attic after his brothers.

Dean went to sleep not long after the angels settled down. After a few hours, Sam dragged himself upstairs, no longer able to concentrate on the easiest translations he had in his stack of research. He stopped by Dean’s room to check on his brother. The light from the hallway cut a wedge across the bottom half of the bed. Dean was lying on his stomach with one hand hanging off the bed. It was his brother’s preferred way to sleep, but Sam knew that he’d be able to breathe better if he was on his back. He crossed the room and gently lifted Dean up to reposition him against the stack of pillows at the head of the bed. The motion didn’t wake his brother up. Sam frowned and turned on the lamp.

“Shit,” he breathed softly as he caught sight of Dean’s slightly blue tinted lips. His brother’s face was pale and his skin was clammy. Sam dropped a hand to the middle Dean’s chest feeling his quick shallow breaths and the rapid thump of his heart. Twisting towards the door, Sam yelled out, “Bobby!”

Sam grabbed the nasal cannula, slipping the tube over Dean’s ears and sliding the face piece under his nose. Oxygen whined softly as he twisted the knob on the tank. He shook his brother roughly. “Dean. Dean! C’mon, man. Wake up for me.”

Dean groggily opened his eyes and weakly tried to push Sam away. “L’me ‘lone, S’mmy. M’sleepy.”

“Hey, look. I need you to take some deep breaths for me, ok?”

Bobby appeared in the doorway with the three angels fast on his heels just as Dean tried to take a big breath that only resulted in his worst coughing fit so far. He curled in on himself as the harsh, hacking cough racked through his body. His face turned an alarming shade of red.

In an almost choreographed move, the angels scrambled up on the foot of the bed. Gabriel knelt, placing his hands on the lumps of Dean’s feet under the covers. Balthazar stood at his left and Castiel stood at his right. The younger angels each placed a hand on their older brother’s shoulders. Three little heads – one tawny, one white-blonde, and one dark – bowed as the boys started praying in Enochian. Gabriel’s hands glowed with the soft golden light of his diminished Grace. 

As the warm light traveled up Dean’s legs, his cough subsided and the rigid tenseness of his muscles began to relax. When the light reached his torso, he took a massive inhale filling his lungs with oxygen. Dark green eyes widened with surprise as he stared at the three angels at the foot of the bed. Before he could say anything the light drifted up over his head. He felt the familiar press of two fingers against his forehead, though Gabriel was still holding onto his feet, and like a switch had been flicked in his mind, he slumped over asleep. His breathing was still slightly faster than normal, but he was taking deeper breaths than before.

The light suddenly vanished and Gabriel fell forward, flat on his face between Dean’s knees. Bobby and Sam stared in shock for half a second before Sam rushed to make sure Dean was still alive and Bobby grabbed Gabriel off of the bed. 

“What the hell was that?” Bobby looked down at the unconscious angel-boy cradled in his arms.

Balthazar and Castiel jumped down from the bed to check on their brother. The archangel was pale and limp, but still breathing. The younger angels shared a guilty look before turning eyes up to Bobby.

Balthazar was the first to speak. “We thought that Gabriel might have enough Grace left to heal Dean if we could figure out a way to concentrate it. Cas suggested prayer might make his Grace stronger.”

“I think it worked,” Castiel added in a very quiet voice.

“Yeah, but at what cost to your brother?” Bobby asked gruffly.

“Unless he did something stupid like use all of his Grace on Dean, Gabe should be fine.” Balthazar poked his brother hard in the ribs.

Just as Bobby was about to protest the other angel’s rough treatment of his brother, the archangel giggled and squirmed. He opened one golden colored eye and said with much amusement, “I was trying to get some the sympathy going around since I’m the only one who hasn’t gotten sick yet. Guess playing dead didn’t work, did it?”

“Not funny, Gabe,” Sam said from his spot next to Dean. 

Gabriel wiggled out of Bobby’s grasp and stepped over to the bedside. He rested his hand on top of Dean’s hand and his smile faded slightly. “I couldn’t completely heal him, but I think maybe I sped up the process and he’ll get better quicker. At the very least, he’ll rest easier tonight.”

The relief in the room was palpable. For several long minutes everybody just stared in silence at Dean, watching the easy rise and fall of his chest as he slept. 

Finally, Bobby nudged Sam’s shoulder. “C’mon. Let’s get to bed. You three need to go to sleep too.”

The angels didn’t move from their spot pressed up against the bed’s footboard. Gabriel turned to look up at the hunters. “We’ll stay here with Dean for a while.”

Sam looked to Bobby who shrugged at him before heading across the hall to his room. The younger Winchester pressed his hand against his brother’s forehead, swiping his bangs back. Glancing over to the angels, he nodded. “Ok, but don’t stay up too late. You guys are cranky as hell when you don’t get enough sleep.”

“You’re no better, Samsquatch!” Gabriel ribbed with a grin.

Sam lingered on the edge of the bed just a moment more before standing. “If he gets worse…”

“We’ll come get you,” Balthazar interrupted and pushed at Sam’s butt to get him out of the room.

He paused in the doorway to look back. The three boys were standing vigil by the bed. He chuckled softly to himself. “Angels are watching over you, Dean.”

The house was eerily quiet the next morning. Dean slowly became aware that he was conscious, but chose not to open his eyes just yet. He wanted to hang on to sleep just a little longer. However, his awkward position on the bed and a weird heaviness on his chest prevented him from going back to dreamland – and he had been having a really awesome dream too, not that he could remember anything about it, only that it was awesome and filled with warm golden sunshine. He wiggled a little bit, eyes flying open in fear when he realized he couldn’t move. 

The sight before him instantly made Dean smile. Balthazar was curled up to his left with his back pressed into Dean’s side, Gabriel was clinging to his right arm to keep himself from falling off the edge of the narrow daybed, and Castiel was lying on top of him with his dark head in the middle of Dean’s chest. All three angels were fast asleep. In a rare moment of affection for three of the biggest troublemakers he had ever dealt with, Dean tightened his arm around Balthazar, rubbed his thumb gently against Gabriel’s knee, and nuzzled his nose into the top of Castiel’s messy hair.

They might not always like each other, but there was no mistaking that Dean loved these three like family. While he wanted the curse to be broken and the angels to be returned to their normal, adult-sized, Warrior-of-God selves, he knew he’d miss moments like this when they still seemed so innocent, cherub-like.

***

Weeks later after Dean fully recovered, he and Sam took a job near Grand Rapids, Minnesota. It was the first case the Winchesters had taken since the angels had been cursed. Three hikers had disappeared without a trace from their campsite in the woods outside of town. The headlines of the disappearance mentioned that a newly married couple had gone missing in the same area, on the same date eight years ago. Further digging by Sam showed that more people had gone missing from the same area, on the same date every eight years for nearly a century. 

Sam got to a stopping point in his research of the woods where the disappearances happened and leaned back in his chair, stretching his long body. Dean had been standing at the window staring out at nothing for nearly half an hour. Sam frowned. “What’s wrong?”

Dean looked up as though he forgot his brother had been sitting at the dinette table the whole time. “Hmm? Oh. Nothing.”

Sam raised a brow. This particular podunk hotel was in a dead zone for cell phones and wifi. Dean had called Bobby collect earlier in the evening, but the conversation was very short. He let the older hunter know they had figured out whose ghost was preying on hikers and that if they found the grave tomorrow, then they should be home the day after. With a half-smile, Sam realized what must be bothering his brother. As Dean went to the fridge to pull out a beer, Sam flipped through the photos saved on his phone. When he found the one he was looking for, he tossed the phone to Dean.

Dean fumbled one-handedly to catch the phone that was unexpectedly hurdled at him. If he dropped it, he was toast. Sam loved his iPhone almost as much as Dean loved the Impala. By the time he had a firm grip on the phone, the screen had locked. He swiped his thumb over the glass. A bright smile lit up his face when he saw the picture – the three sleeping angels dogpiled on top of him when he was sick. Dean noticed he was sleeping too. Sam must have taken the picture before they woke up that morning.

“I was going to use it for blackmail one day,” Sam said with a gentle smile. “But, you looked like you needed a pick-me-up.”

Dean’s smile softened. “Thanks, Sammy.”

Before the moment could descend further into chick-flick territory, Sam changed the subject. “So get this…”

As his brother pulled out his notes and started mapping out potential places where their ghost’s remains might be buried, Dean kept thumbing over the phone’s screen to glance down at the picture. He was more than ready to go back to the chaotic, yet somehow comforting routine of Bobby’s house. 

“Dean?” Sam prompted.

“Yeah, yeah. Sounds good.” He wasn’t quite sure what Sam had just said, and pushed the phone out of reach to turn his full attention back to his brother. The faster they wrapped up this case, the sooner they’d be home.

Two days later the Impala pulled off the highway into Singer’s Auto Salvage Yard and three pint-sized angels dashed off of the porch to welcome the Winchesters back. Dean couldn’t have asked for a better home coming.


End file.
